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Grammar handouts

This is just to let you know that I have begun to post some French grammar handouts to various pages on frenchteacher.net. These are just reference notes, not practice worksheets (of which there are already many on the site, designed for oral and written work). So far, I have done a handout on the subjunctive and passive for the A-level page, handouts on the perfect tense, irregular present tense verbs, immediate future and direct object pronouns for the Y8 page, handouts on the imperfect and future tenses for the Y9 page and various handouts for Y10-11 - negatives, adverbs, adverbial pronouns, future perfect, pluperfect and using pour, depuis and pendant.

Expect to see more.

The idea is that they could be handed out to students to reinforce classroom practice. Students could stick them in their exercise books or place them in their files. They could be used for display, but don't forget here are already quite a lot of free whiteboard notes on the site. These were written for display. When I taught I tended to stick to simple Word docs rather than fancy powerpoints!

I know there are schools where students do not have access to text books at home, so takeaway notes can be useful.

I have tried to make them as clear and simple as possible. The subjunctive is simplified somewhat for A-level, with just a selection of phrases which trigger it off. The subtleties of the subjunctive are not really needed at that level.

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I did my first degree in French and Linguistics at Reading University and my MA in second language acquisition at the Institute of Education, London. I taught at Tiffin School, Hampton School, then was Head of Modern Languages at Ripon Grammar School in Yorkshire for 24 years. I now write resources for frenchteacher.net, train PGCE students at Buckingham University, present at occasional events, blog and work for the AQA exam board training and writing teacher support resources.

Publications

The Language Teacher Toolkit (2016), a handbook for teachers, co-authored with Gianfranco Conti